Monday, October 8, 2007

So is the Defense really that good? Or is it the competition?

Apparently, over the last four games, the defense "is just three yards per game off the pace set by the best defense in the history of the school: Steve Dunlap's 1996 unit that led the country giving up just 223.4 yards per game."

So I thought I had better take a closer look at the numbers:

The defense is giving up 261.5 yards per game of total offense so far this season, but how does that break down opponent by opponent?

OppYds. v. WVUAvg yds./gamedelta
WMU301400.5-99.5
Marshall387385.0+2.0
UMD265347.2-82.2
ECU178315.0-137.0
USF270363.6-93.6
'Cuse202260.8-58.8


So the defense, on average, is holding opponents to 78.2 yards per game less than their season average. Contrast to Louisville mentioned in an earlier post today.

I'm impressed.

2 comments:

J. Johnston said...

That's a great bit of work. I had been wondering the same thing about our defense and it's success. Thanks for putting in the time to get those numbers, as I too am impressed. It's nice to see the D get back to where it was before last season. This post gives me a little more credibility in my arguments with friends.

J. Johnston said...

The point isn't whether the offenses we've played have been good, they haven't. The point is that we've managed to hold them well below their already crappy averages. I think the defense has done very well so far, compared to what I expected.